7 minutes ago, Cochis_Calhoun said:

You can talk about football being a mans game and modern football being too soft,  but what Fitzpatrick has done there is some cowardly career ending crap, he can see Chubb coming the whole way and he lowers his shoulder and barrels into his standing leg at knee height?  At very best it's careless of another players career. 

There'll be the usual platitudes in the presser about how Minkah feels just terrible and isn't that type of player, but he's done Chubb there and the more you watch it the worse it gets.

 

Dick Butkus once said, "I would never try to hurt somebody unless it was important, like a league game.”

1 minute ago, LeanMeanGM said:

Marshall - No

Nelson - No

Charles - No

Gates - Yes, but not first ballot

Lang - No

Sitton - No

Unger - No

Peppers - Yes. First ballot.

 

 

Ngata?

11 minutes ago, wussbasket said:

The run game against the Vikings is not sustainable if the Eagles continue to struggle in the air. Hurts needs to start seeing the field better, and I think he will start to do that. While I don't like forcing the ball to certain players, they need to get AJ involved more and early. Goederts targets will come, but they really need to get AJ going and I'd like to see him play more in the slot to create mismatches.

The Eagles have polar opposite stats on both sides of the ball. On offense they are top 5 rushing but bottom 5 in passing, defense is top 10 against the run but bottom 10 against the pass.

YOUR SAMPLE SIZE IS TWO GAMES, who gives a crap where the offense are in the passing rankings after 2 games, last year we had lots of yards but one less TD through two games, Hurts takes a while to get into rhythm and his career has been marked by taking time to get used to new coordinators. with a long week we'll look better again on Monday.

Oh and those defensive rankings are a real head scratcher, it's like the complete opposite of what you'd expect from a team that had a stellar defensive line and injuries on the back en... oh wait no it's not.

18 minutes ago, wussbasket said:

The run game against the Vikings is not sustainable if the Eagles continue to struggle in the air. Hurts needs to start seeing the field better, and I think he will start to do that. While I don't like forcing the ball to certain players, they need to get AJ involved more and early. Goederts targets will come, but they really need to get AJ going and I'd like to see him play more in the slot to create mismatches.

The Eagles have polar opposite stats on both sides of the ball. On offense they are top 5 rushing but bottom 5 in passing, defense is top 10 against the run but bottom 10 against the pass.

I watched the All22.  I would argue that Brian Johnson is still getting his feet wet.   Flores ran a ton of blitzes and spies Hurts with a LB all game.  He also dropped seven in coverage quite a bit.  But Brian’s use of the short game was outside the numbers.  Needed to utilize the middle of the field more and not just in the run game.  That said, running in those spaces is far more likely to produce good results. There is danger passing in the middle.  Give it time.  I find it interesting that a 78% passing rate is considered bad.  

14 minutes ago, wussbasket said:

The run game against the Vikings is not sustainable if the Eagles continue to struggle in the air. Hurts needs to start seeing the field better, and I think he will start to do that. While I don't like forcing the ball to certain players, they need to get AJ involved more and early. Goederts targets will come, but they really need to get AJ going and I'd like to see him play more in the slot to create mismatches.

I respectfully disagree.  I firmly believe the run game we saw on Thursday is sustainable regardless of how the passing game shakes out.  Both New England and Tampa Bay drew up defensive game plans that (1) took away the deep passes with a blanket of coverage, and (2) took away the option of Hurts running in RPOs by devoting the ir DEs to spying Hurts.  But there are only 11 players on the field at a time for the Defense, and that put the interior D-Line and LBs at a distinct disadvantage when dealing with the eagles' O-line and RBs. That disadvantage will continue until and unless the opposing Defenses devote more of their resources to stopping the runs. 

If the DEs stop spying Hurts, then he will be able to make his own contributions to the RPO running game. He will also have a bit more time to go through his progressions and find an open receiver.  Brian Johnson can also help by devoting more of his attention to short passes over the middle, which should be open.

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The Eagles have polar opposite stats on both sides of the ball. On offense they are top 5 rushing but bottom 5 in passing, defense is top 10 against the run but bottom 10 against the pass.

In true numbers terms you are absolutely correct, but it is a small sample size you are dealing with.

3 minutes ago, just relax said:

Ngata?

Not first ballot. I think he'll linger around for a few years and be in the conversation. I would say he's not a HoF'er but if he got in down the line I wouldn't be totally surprised either.

9 minutes ago, just relax said:

Minnesota dropped eight into coverage on passing downs. Tough to call pass plays against that. The answer is to stay ahead of the sticks on early downs. And run the ball.

Really only seven.  That low LB is really spying Hurts. 

25 minutes ago, EaglePhan1986 said:

I think the Eagles lose Monday night. Not confident at all. 

Your predictions last week and in Week One were both correct.  Let's hope this prediction of yours is wrong.

10 minutes ago, LeanMeanGM said:

Marshall - No

Nelson - No

Charles - No

Gates - Yes, but not first ballot

Lang - No

Sitton - No

Unger - No

Ngata - No, but maybe eventually gets in

Peppers - Yes. First ballot.

 

 

I would switch Gates comments with Peppers comments but otherwise agree entirely.  Nelson and Ngata belong in the Hall of Very Good.

11 minutes ago, just relax said:

Dick Butkus once said, "I would never try to hurt somebody unless it was important, like a league game.”

Butkus was a nasty player, bordering on dirty.  His play wouldn’t work in today’s NFL.

 

39 minutes ago, mattwill said:

Good assessment.  I particularly like what you said in your third paragraph.  We ndid not have a good sense of what quality of foundation Siri was building the 2022 season on.  It proved to be a whole lot better than we thought it was.  But it wasn't just Hurts.  The addition of Brown was a major step forward.  The Offensive Line was what we expected, but the Defensive Line came together as a unit in a way we certainly did not expect. 

Regarding your final paragraph, one year is always going to "only be one year."  That perspective is always also going to feed pessimism more than optimism.  I prefer not to look at the team as a whole, but rather to slice and dice down to its seven component units, which for me are QB, the RBs, the Receivers, the O-Line, the D-Line, the LBs and Safeties. and the CBs ... plus the Kickers.  All of those component units are vulnerable to the injury toll.   That can't be avoided, nor should it be overplayed.  For most of the component units it is a wild card.  But barring a catastrophic injury (like the Browns had last night and the Jets had last week), six of the seven component units are very solid ... solid in a way that is consistent with your second paragraph.  The last unit ... the "up the center" unit ... is a work in progress.  I personally believe that we need to be patient and let that unit mature.  I know that is not the opinion of many of the posters here, and I respect that, but I'm optimistic that we have enough quality in that unit that it will mature well.   

Ultimately I look at it fairly simply.  The Eagles starters didn't play a preseason essentially and then played 2 games in the first 4 days with 2 new coordinators and a rash of injuries in their thinnest spots. They won both.  Absolutely the season could play out in many ways but I think it's extremely reasonable to expect the team's play quality and cohesiveness to improve going forward.

This doesn't sound good for him.

27 minutes ago, Iggles_Phan said:

That's the thing right?  I think we all remember 2017... and it was magical.  Wentz looked like the real deal and was going to be the guy here for the next decade.  But, 2018, he didn't look like that guy.  That year, we blamed the injury and that he was still coming back, figuring he'd be better in 2019.  And to a certain level, he was... but never approached 2017.  The WR corps at the end of 2019 was horrifically bad, but somehow they managed to sneak into the playoffs, and then the hit to the back of the head happened on Wentz, and the rest... is history.  

For 2023... the fear is that we won't see that same level of play from Hurts that we saw last year.  There's no reason to explain why, other than new OC/playcaller, and the lack of work in the PS.  So, hopefully we see the rust come off and we see this team go back to what it was last year.  If we don't see it soon though, I think that that means that this is just who this team is... and more than 10 wins might be overly optimistic.  But, since we do sit at 2-0, we can still hope for the rust to come off, and believe that 12 or more wins are still possible.

Hurts through 2 games in 2022

18-32-243-0-0 passing in game one and 17-90-1 rushing
26-31-333-1-1 passing in game two and 11-57-2 rushing

Hurts through 2 games in 2023

22-33-170-1-0 passing in game one and 9-37-0 rushing
18-23-193-1-1 passing in game two and 12-35-2 rushing

The thing that jumps out at me from those stats is the huge difference in the both the yards per carry and number of carries between the two years.  In my opinion, that is a direct result of the change in the defensive schemes deployed by BB and Flores respectively.  The DEs spying Hurts in 2023 has taken away a huge part of his game, and he and Brian Johnson are having to counter that (somewhat) unexpected defensive deployment.  

11 hours ago, e-a-g-l-e-s eagles! said:

She wasn’t a fan of the Mayo coffee 

 

Well she's first round talent.  

So watching the All22.  Jefferson is a lot like Brown.  Even covered, he isn’t.  The coverages were interesting.  Definitely designed to keep everything in front of them.  Heck, sometimes Evans was so deep, he wasn’t even visible in the All22.  Nice mix of coverages but I hate the soft zones.  Need to play more man match.  Evans was better this game.  Nice use of three safeties to end the half. (Recall, that is how Epps was worked in).  Jobe played pretty well.  Goodrich struggled but part of that was placement.  Part of that is size.  Not convinced he is bit enough to play TEs.  Part of that was speed, which goes to quickness on the turn and angles as much as anything.  Vikings targeted the LBs some.  They gave up catches but mostly kept things in front of them.  The group will get better.  I expect more three S looks against the Bucs.

Damn but Ricks is awful blocking the gunner one on one.  Really bad.  But in return Ringo is dang near unblockable as a gunner with his size and straight line speed.
 

 

4 minutes ago, Sack that QB said:

This doesn't sound good for him.

Sounds like he’s really upset about his mom being murdered….

40 minutes ago, rrfierce said:

Hurts definitely needs to start making the 10-20 yard passes in the middle of the field to AJ and goedert. We seems to have loads of those last season but not much this year. Could be the play calling I guess 

Play calling yes, but I also suspect that a lot of the 2022 completions in that area of the field came on RPO plays where the D's commitment to the run gave Hurts time to successfully run through his progressions and find AJ or Goedert in the short middle.  He hasn't had the luxury of that time due to the defensive schemes BB and Flores came up with.

42 minutes ago, Iggles_Phan said:

Well, for that to happen, we'll need Goedert to actually run a route 10-20 yards downfield.  So far I've only seen him on screen passes and some 5 yard hitch routes.  Hopefully the scheme opens up soon.

Agreed 100%

 

2 minutes ago, BigEFly said:

 

Should have been that way from the beginning. There's not enough talent for 32 pro teams. There definitely isn't enough for two more leagues. 

7 minutes ago, BigEFly said:

 

 

 

Hopefully Philly starts to play in Philly then.  Always wanted a Philly XFL team.

Only a matter of time before we start seeing lopsided Hurts shirts and jerseys show up in third world countries where Nike dumps them 

 

7 minutes ago, BigEFly said:

So watching the All22.  Jefferson is a lot like Brown.  Even covered, he isn’t.  The coverages were interesting.  Definitely designed to keep everything in front of them.  Heck, sometimes Evans was so deep, he wasn’t even visible in the All22.  Nice mix of coverages but I hate the soft zones.  Need to play more man match.  

In addition, if we play more man match, the D-Line is going to have fewer QB Hurries and more QB Sacks.  Making the QB go through progressions rather than throwing quickly to his first target will do that.

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Evans was better this game.  Nice use of three safeties to end the half. (Recall, that is how Epps was worked in).  Jobe played pretty well.  Goodrich struggled but part of that was placement.  Part of that is size.  Not convinced he is big enough to play TEs.  Part of that was speed, which goes to quickness on the turn and angles as much as anything.  Vikings targeted the LBs some.  They gave up catches but mostly kept things in front of them.  The group will get better.  I expect more three S looks against the Bucs.

Once Maddox went down, of the 5 DBs on the field only Slay was a carry over from last year.  That much change, especially with two of the players only in their second year, there are going to be inevitable growing pains ... and both LBs being new only adds to the lack of chemistry.

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Damn but Ricks is awful blocking the gunner one on one.  Really bad.  But in return Ringo is dang near unblockable as a gunner with his size and straight line speed.

What did your All22 review show you regarding Sydney Brown as the gunner on the other side of the field from Ringo?

15 minutes ago, BigEFly said:

 

Love that.  I don't think there's room for multiple startup leagues.  Love to see them merge and become stronger.